Speeches by Baldwin.

“You have made that point very clearly to the Committee. Ms Olufunwa, would you make any other modifications to the withdrawal penalty?”

“There is agreement from all three of our panellists that you would like to see that modification. There was experience during the pandemic of a 20% withdrawal penalty. Are you in favour of reverting to that? Is that effectively what you are saying.”

“I should declare that I was a Treasury Minister at the time that this was announced in the Budget. It is very interesting for me to look now, 10 years on, and see what has and has not worked, and what could be improved. I wanted to draw out a little bit more on the withdrawal penalties. We heard very clearly from Mr Le…”

“In your written evidence, all of you say that you have an issue with the withdrawal penalty. I wanted to ask if any of you have any evidence that the withdrawal penalty itself is preventing people from opening a LISA.”

“We have not seen many examples of that, because the product has not been going long enough for that to be an issue.”

“Do you all agree with that? Does any of you have any additional evidence that you want to share with the Committee?”

“We have more questions on that. The evidence that we have had is that, last year, nearly 100,000 people paid the withdrawal penalty, and only 56,000 people used their LISA to buy a new home. That has to mean that there is a problem with the design here, does it not?”

“I should declare that I was a Treasury Minister at the time that this was announced in the Budget. It is very interesting for me to look now, 10 years on, and see what has and has not worked, and what could be improved. I wanted to draw out a little bit more on the withdrawal penalties. We heard very clearly from Mr Le…”

“We have more questions on that. The evidence that we have had is that, last year, nearly 100,000 people paid the withdrawal penalty, and only 56,000 people used their LISA to buy a new home. That has to mean that there is a problem with the design here, does it not?”

“We have had evidence that the penalty should be moved to 20%, as it was during the pandemic, on a permanent basis. Does any of you want to make a different case for the penalty? No. Does anyone want to disagree with the evidence that we have heard about the home-buying price, in that, if you end up spending just a bit …”

“Mr Johnson, more people last year paid this penalty than actually used their LISA to buy their first home. Do you regard that as a design failure?”

“The withdrawal penalty is the biggest deterrent, is it?”

“Is the withdrawal penalty itself, if you can try to just focus on that aspect, acting as a deterrent to people opening these accounts in the first place?”

“You have made that point very clearly to the Committee. Ms Olufunwa, would you make any other modifications to the withdrawal penalty?”

“There is agreement from all three of our panellists that you would like to see that modification. There was experience during the pandemic of a 20% withdrawal penalty. Are you in favour of reverting to that? Is that effectively what you are saying.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) on securing the debate. It will perhaps come as news to him that I, too, was one of the people who voted for the Groceries Code Adjudicator. I was a Member during the coalition Go…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“On a point of order, Dame Siobhain. Is it orderly for me to point out that the NHS is suffering from a number of over-65s who sadly have a high level of mortality—”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“The hon. Gentleman mentions the important role that third-sector organisations play in our society. Was he as shocked as I was to learn from Marie Curie cancer care not only that the increase in national insurance will cost it several million pounds a year, but that the winter fuel allowance is being taken from 44,000 …”